


The Legend of the Dersite Who Didn't

by conceptofzero



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-21
Updated: 2011-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptofzero/pseuds/conceptofzero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every morning, Jack Noir's alarm wakes him up at 6am on the dot. Only unlike every other morning, he doesn't get out of bed. He lays there, staring up at the ceiling, and wondering silently what the fuck he's doing with his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Legend of the Dersite Who Didn't

Every morning, Jack Noir's alarm wakes him up at 6am on the dot. He has the same routine most mornings: stagger to the bathroom, shower until he wakes up, eat breakfast while reading the news, get dressed, and then walk the five blocks to the main Towers and arrive at his desk exactly at 7am. There are some mornings when he sleeps in a little later, or showers a little longer, or reads more, and so he cuts off time here and there from everywhere else, or runs to work instead of strolling, and still makes it there for 7am.

Every morning, the same fucking thing.

This morning, his alarm goes off and he shuts it off, just like usual. Only unlike every other morning, he doesn't get out of bed. He lays there, staring up at the ceiling, and wondering silently what the fuck he's doing with his life.

Every morning is the same, and so is every day, and every single night. Sometimes minor things change. Sometimes he has band practice. Sometimes he takes a pretty girl home. Sometimes he spends all day at work threatening to kill every single agent who drops off contraband with headache-inducing paperwork and more fucking stacks of tickets. Sometimes the Queen shows up and breaks his balls. No, scratch that, most times the Queen shows up and breaks his balls.

And today, he sees no real fucking reason to get up. Jack Noir rolls over, closes his eyes, and goes straight to fucking sleep again.

7:30am, he hears the Illuminated Lunette ringing. Jack ignores it, putting a pillow over his head and going back to sleep. If they want him, they can come and fucking get him. Today, he's staying home.

It's 8am when the knock comes at the door. Jack finally rouses himself out of bed, throwing on a uniform as he heads for the door and glances through the peephole. It's the Dignitary out there, looking bored and annoyed. He knocks again. "Jack, answer the door."

Jack answers it. "Go the fuck away."

"You're not dead. Why aren't you at work," Dignitary glances around behind Jack, as if there will be some sort of answer there.

"Didn't feel like it," Jack wanders into the kitchen. His stomach's growling, and he reaches for the cupboard with cereal. But then he stops. Why the fuck would he want to eat that tasteless dogshit this morning? He can make whatever he wants.

The Dignitary is still standing in the doorway, looking at Jack like he's grown two heads. "You didn't feel like it."

"What's the point of going in? I'll do exactly what I did yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that!" Jack opens his fridge up and grabs the milk and eggs. Maybe an omelet. No, french toast. That sounds even better. He grabs the bread as well and goes hunting for the cinnamon. "So I'm staying at home."

DD stands in the doorway, looking downright shocked, like he's never considered doing it before. But... then again, Jack had never considered it before today either. He had always just gotten up and gone. Except thinking about it, he really can't see the point.

"Hey. Get in here and help me make some french toast," Jack finds the cinnamon and sets it on the counter with the rest of the ingredients. "Or do you really want to go back to work?"

Dignitary blinks, and after a moment, he steps into Jack's apartment.

9:30am and they're sitting in Jack's living room, eating french toast with syrup when there's another knock at the door. "It's open!" Jack yells, not getting up off the couch. They've got the Illuminated Lunette playing music while they eat.

"What tha' hell are you two doing here?" The Brute comes lumbering in, followed by the Droll. "I thought you were dead."

"No, we're fine," The Dignitary gestures to the french toast sitting on the counter. "Help yourself. We made plenty."

Brute doesn't touch it, looking at it suspiciously and then at Jack and the Dignitary with that same look. "You high or something? Work started two and a half hours ago."

"Fuck work. I'm staying home today," Jack has another bite of toast, giving it a chew and swallow before finishing his thought. "Maybe I'll stay home every fucking day. What's the point of going in?"

"It's the same thing every single day," The Dignitary had gotten on board with Jack's thoughts easily enough. It was like once they were pointed out, you couldn't help but see the logic in them. Why go to work? Why not stay home and just enjoy life for once? "I'd rather sit here and eat french toast than sit in my office and fill out paperwork."

"We can listen to jazz here! I can't listen to fucking anything at work!" Jack violently stabs his fork into his toast, syrup squishing over the plate. "Why the fuck would I go in to work when I can stay at home?"

Brute has that same look on his face, that stunned realization that everything Jack and the Dignitary are saying makes perfect sense, only he never thought of it before. On the other hand, the Droll seems to have easily taken to the idea, climbing up the stool at the kitchen counter and helping himself to toast. "Can we watch a movie Jack?"

"Why the fuck not?" Jack slouches into his couch, smiling with satisfaction. "We can watch whatever we like. Hey Brute, help yourself, and get us the beers out of the fridge!"

11am and they're all a bit tipsy and partway into a film when the Royal Guard comes storming into the apartment. Nobody moves from the couches. The captain of the Guard lowers his spear when he sees that nothing's happened. "Archagent Noir, what are you doing?"

"Lemme handle this one," Brute turns around to face the guards and Jack lets him, opening a brand new beer. The movie's good, and he's too comfortable to give a fuck. Anyway, the Brute gets it now. And soon as he says it out loud, they'll get it too.

At noon, he showers for over half an hour, drinking a few beers and just savouring the feeling of hot water on his carapace. Showers in the morning are five minutes, maybe eight if he's feeling really tired. He's never really stood in here as long as he can stand, feeling the water course down his back and over his head. The water is hot and the beer is cold, and it tastes so amazingly good to just drink in the shower.

The guard cleared out an hour ago, along with the Brute. Dignitary and Droll decided to go take a walk through the botanical gardens around the time he jumped in the shower and they aren't back yet. Hell, maybe they won't be back at all. There's no reason for them to come rushing back.

1:30pm, Jack makes himself breakfast for lunch. Instead of french toast, he cooks bacon and sausages, and hashbrowns and eats it in bed, reading a novel he's been meaning to for months. His windows are wide open and the usual steady hum of work has been replaced with something else, something wilder. There's laughter and singing, shouting and cheering and the sounds of people who have just realized that they can do whatever they like.

He crunches bacon between his teeth and imagines the rest of his life going like this, waking up whenever, doing what he feels like instead of what he's meant to. It's not half bad. Hell, it's all good if he's really thinking about it. There's nothing about this that he doesn't like.

It's a little after three in the afternoon when the Queen finally shows up. From his balcony, Jack can see most of Derse has come to a grinding halt. Some people are just sitting in the streets, talking with total strangers. Others are drinking or drawing on the ground with chalk, or doing anything but work. He's fully tanked and loving it.

Jack's spent the last hour on his balcony, looking out over Derse and enjoying himself.

He doesn't realize the Black Queen's behind him until she hears her speak. "Jack Noir, explain yourself."

Jack presses the bottle to his mouth, taking a swig from it before he answers. "I didn't feel like coming in today."

"I don't believe not coming in was ever a choice," She joins him on the balcony. Jack becomes very aware that maybe this is a bad place to have a confrontation. It's a very long way down to street level. He holds onto the beer bottle like it might save him, though he knows that's simply not going to happen. "What I really want to know is why your subordination has resulted in every Dersite in a five block radius doing the same thing."

He eyes her up, trying to decide exactly how pissed she is. Jack's not entirely sure this will work on her. But he might as well try. "Because they all realized the same thing as me. What's the point of going into work? It's the same thing every single day. Every single fucking day, the very same thing, over and over and over again."

The Black Queen looks at Jack. It's not exactly the same look he's seen on the other's faces, but it's close. "Is this a joke?"

"The only joke is repeating the same day over and over and over again until the War comes or until I go fucking batshit insane," Jack gestures out to Derse around him, to the people below in the streets who are for the first time in their lives doing something they want to do, not something they're compelled to do. "What sort of life is this? We get up, we work, we come home, we sleep and we do it again. Every day exactly the same. Don't you ever get fucking tired of it? Don't you ever want to just stay in bed?"

"No Jack. No I don't get tired. I don't want to just stay in bed," She approaches him and he steps back, all too aware that there's no place for him to go but down. "I have never in all my life even considered doing nothing."

"Maybe you should! Fuck, maybe we all should!" Jack's heart is hammering in his chest but he talks fast, hoping maybe he can talk his way through her programmed brain. "Do you know how good it is to sleep in and eat whatever the fuck you feel like for breakfast? Do you know how great a beer tastes in the afternoon? Or what it's like to just talk to somebody about something you're interested in instead of the same fucking conversation about work that you have every single day?"

The look she gives him says it all: No, she doesn't. She doesn't know how great it is. That look's on their face, the look that the Dignitary had, that the Brute had, that every single person down there in the street had on their faces the moment they heard Jack Noir's words coming from someone else's mouth. Until today, it had never occurred to a single person among the billions and billions on Derse that maybe they should just do what they want, not what they're meant to.

Jack Noir offers the Queen his beer. She looks at it for a moment before taking it from his hand, pressing it to her mouth and draining it dry. When she lowers the bottle, the look on her face has become something else. Jack's heart is still hammering in his chest, but it's not entirely out of fear. "Well Jack Noir. I now know what beer tastes like in the afternoon."

"And?" He steps closer to her, for once not minding their difference in height.

"I think I see the reasoning behind your argument," She sets the empty bottle on the balcony railing. It rocks there for a moment before falling, falling out of sight. "Let's try a little conversation."

He hears the faint sound of glass breaking on the street far below. Jack gestures to the door. "After you."

It's 6pm and Jack Noir has spent the last few hours on the couch with the Queen in deep, deep conversation. Turns out that when she's not breathing down his neck, she's half-tolerable. And she can appreciate jazz, which is a plus in his books, even if there are still plenty of negatives on the other side. There's a half-finished bottle of whiskey on the coffee table and two glasses with mostly melted ice.

"We can't allow this to happen every day. We might as well simply roll over and bare our throats to Prospit," She lounges languidly on the couch and Jack thinks he'll never be able to forget how she looks right now, relaxed for the very first time in her life.

"Then don't let it happen every day. Build it in to the work schedule," Jack pours her another drink, holding it out to her. "Give us a day to just fucking stay home. Then it would be the same thing day after fucking day."

"Hmm," She takes the glass, considering the suggestion. Jack can see it in her eyes. She's intrigued. The Queen swirls her drink, ice and whiskey sloshing around. "Perhaps... it would certainly be a better alternative to risking having Derse brought to a screeching halt by the laziness of one agent."

"Hey, fuck you," Jack snaps back automatically. There's tension in the air for a moment as she clearly evaluates if she's offended or not. She seems to settle on not, sipping her whiskey. "Maybe every five days."

"Six," She automatically says and he can't tell if she's just being contrary or what. Not that it matters since the Queen's the one who decides how this works in the end. She finishes her drink and stands up. "You will be at work tomorrow at 7am sharp."

"Or what? You'll pay me a visit?" He presses his luck one last time, just to see exactly what he threat will be.

The Queen walks towards Jack's end of the couch, her knees sinking into the cushions as she kneels on either side of his legs. He's all too aware of how tall she is, how powerful, and how close she is to him. Her voice is like silk over steel and Jack can't take his eyes off of her. "There is no 'or what'. You will be there. And in six days time, you'll pay a visit to my chambers."

He's not even breathing when she leans back. Jack watches her stroll out of the apartment, only remembering to breathe once the door shuts. Fuck. Her chambers. Where's the King going to be? Shit, why's he even thinking like that? It's not like they're going to do anything.

Except he's pretty sure he didn't invite him up just to play some fucking chess. Jack pours himself a whiskey and drinks it down. All of this, just because he felt like staying home.

After a moment of letting it sink it, he gets up and heads to the kitchen. Might as well make supper and enjoy the rest of his day of freedom. Getting up tomorrow wasn't going to be easy, but with that promised seventh day just on the horizon, it might not be so bad.


End file.
